Slow performance in viewport even in wireframe mode
I sympathise with you @Arqueo Artis

I use a MacBook Air 16", My school computer.
Its a pile of ****.

There is one simple fact:

You cannot have complex meshes. As you said it restricts production.

Though, if you have multiple meshes, use blenders layers. Use one to construct on, the others hold the rest. Just note, when you render you have to select all the scenes your objects are on.

If it is a sculpt, you are just going to have to reduce polygons. 

I recommend using the modifier decimate.
Though it is slow to tweak with high polygons, you can normally reduce polygons in massive amounts without losing much detail.

If you are using any particle effects, just hide them until you need them.

BTW: I find object mode and sculpt mode the fastest. Wireframe mode is usually quite slow. I am fairly sure blender doesn't worry about vertexes behind faces, but don't quote me on that :-).

That's what I do anyway.

Good luck and I hope I helped,

BFB